For God and Gold

by Julian Stafford Corbett

With that the preachers departed, and Sir Fulke soon after followed them on his way to London, much saddened, as I think, to see what manner of man his friend had been.

Whether he was heard by the Council or not I cannot tell. Certain it is, however, that on his return he took no steps to prevent the funeral. I expect, if the truth were known, his zeal won little encouragement from the Council. For in the early days of our wise Queen's reign, in spite of an ordinance against using new doctrines or ceremonies without authority, and the proclamation against King Edward's service-book, which had been given out the month before, things were left to go on with as little mud-stirring as possible, until Parliament could be brought together.

I doubt not the poor old knight lamented bitterly the high-handed days of his old master, King Henry; but he was helpless, and a day was fixed for the funeral to take place at our little church.

Well I remember that sunny January morning, and how I dreaded what was to come. At an early hour great numbers of people came flocking out of Rochester, Sittingbourne, and the villages around to Longdene. For, since this was but the first year of the Queen's reign, no one knew as yet of a certainty what order would be taken in ecclesiastical matters, and the news that a gentleman was to be buried after a new and reformed manner attracted many, since these things, being the first that had been seen in Kent, were accounted strange at the time, and somewhat boldly done, when as yet the old religion was still in force.

The people came rejoicing, with baskets of food, as though to a wedding or glutton mass rather than to a funeral. To me alone, in all that multitude, it was an occasion of sadness. It was the first time the people had had brought home to them that the days of England's shame and bondage were over, and when I looked upon the crowd, before the gate, eating and drinking and laughing, as they waited for the body to come forth, I began to know what Mr. Drake had meant, when he said that a weight was lifted from England's heart, though it only made heavier the load on mine.

So brightly shone the sun, and so radiant were those happy people, scarce one of whom had not lost a friend or kinsman in poor Wyatt's mad attempt to do by force what God had now done so quietly by Mary's death, that I alone of all the world seemed sad, and in my utter loneliness I turned away and wept bitterly.

Mr. Drake was in the room, talking in high spirits to a knot of preachers who had just arrived. Many, I was told, had come down from London to do honour to the great occasion, as they called it, but I forget their names, if I ever knew them.

Good Mr. Drake must have heard my sobs, for he came forward out of the gloomy throng and spoke to me very kindly.

'Come, lad, come,' said he, with his tarry hand on my shoulder; 'have a stout heart. This is a proud day for you, a day of rejoicing in the Lord, that it is given you to bear witness of England's new life, and not, as was vouchsafed to me and others here, to bear witness of her slow cankering death. All England will praise you for this day's work. Ay, and beyond the seas too, many a poor Fleming, and Frenchman, and German who was losing heart will smile happily when he hears Nicholas Festing's name, and envy his son the part God gave him to play.'

Hearing Mr. Drake's words, the preachers gathered round us and vied with each other in giving me drafts of comfort, rather, as it seemed to me, for their own glorification in each other's eyes, by showing their cunning in the brewing of such phrases, than from any desire to console me.